


i see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes

by opensummer



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Kara Danvers, Character Study, F/F, Fic suffers from Miscommunication as Plot Device, I Don't Even Know, I don't even know who I am anymore, Lena Luthor Knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl, Lena Luthor Needs a Hug, Lena Luthor-centric, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Podfic Available, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, The Author Regrets Nothing, Unrequited Love, for a fic that is allegedly about kara she doesn't show up much, i don't hate mon-el but lena might, lena luthor is a smol ball of stress and anxiety, lena luthor: useless lesbian, lex luthor: accidental fairy godvillian, lucy lane is lena luthor's lawyer, mon-el & lena: members of the kara danvers fan club, sanvers are soulmates but perpherial to the story, say that 5x fast, soft butch kara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-04 15:06:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14022855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opensummer/pseuds/opensummer
Summary: Lena Luthor was unprepared to meet her soulmate today, which is why the universe is apparently all too happy to throw Kara Danvers at her.





	i see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note on soulmate mechanics. In this verse I imagine soulmarks coming in at puberty no matter when that is for a particular species. So on earth children have color until they turn thirteen when it fades, on krypton children wake up with soulmarks on their twelfth birthday, and on mars you start feeling your soulmates hurts at 50ish.
> 
> Yeah, martians are the species that feels their soulmates pain. Now imagine J'onn on mars with his wife during the genocide. You're welcome.
> 
> EDIT: 1/1/2019: So [Night](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Night_Inscriber/pseuds/Night) made me podfic AND I CAN ACTUALLY DIE HAPPY. You can find it [here,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17234765%22) and don't forget to say nice things to night!

Lena is unprepared when Jess calls and let’s her know that Clark Kent and a plus one are on their way up. She’s unprepared when the elevator dings and the door opens letting out Clark, who Lena is still working on forgiving and a girl she doesn’t know. She’s unprepared when she meets the girls eyes and knows abruptly that her eyes are blue and her lips are pink and her hair is dark blonde curling into gold at the ends. The wash of colour through the room staggers her, the greeting she’s practiced dying on her lips.

Lena Luthor was unprepared to meet her soulmate today, which is why the universe is apparently all too happy to throw Kara Danvers at her.

“Oh.” She says.

And the girl smiles, a little confused, and heart sinking she thinks, _oh._

Clark Kent (Superman) introduces his cousin ( _Supergirl_ ) and she hates him for it. Hates him for not being what Lex needed and for bringing her her soulmate and the fact that apparently she’s not what Kara Danvers needs either.

When they’re leaving she says “Kara, I’m sorry I think I mixed up my closet. Can you tell me what color this shirt is?”

Clark stiffens beside Kara, but Kara’s already speaking and whatever warning he’s forming dies on his lips.

“Oh,” She says, like it’s an everyday sort of thing (it’s not), “It’s red, Ms. Luthor.”

“Lena please.” She says, and despairs.

* * *

 Lena nearly picks up the phone to call Lex before she remembers.  

Again _,_ for _emphasis_ : Lena nearly picks up the phone to call _Lex Luthor_ about her unrequited superhero soulmate before she remembers.

She just barely manages to hold back a scream.

* * *

 She goes home early that night. Kicks off her heels at the door and pours herself six fingers of whiskey, carries the bottle over to the couch with her. Curls into herself and cries like the world in ending and her heart is breaking. Cries until she can’t anymore.

Then she thinks about Lex in prison and the assassin he sent after her and how he must have felt when he looked at Clark Kent and realized that while he was meant for Clark, Clark was not meant for him.

She remembers the mania in her brother’s eyes as he told her about Clark Kent (Superman) discovering color with Lois Lane and she thinks about madness and Luthor’s blood, about actions and consequences, and the slow steady bitterness that had seeped into her brother before the madness.

She resolves to be nothing like him.

* * *

 Except Kara is everywhere she turns, helpful and kind, and she believes in Lena. In what she’s doing. It’s _exhausting_.

So she gives in. Lets Kara fold her into her family of choice, shows up for lunch dates and game night and wine dinners where she and Alex get quietly, bitterly drunk, and Kara flits between them with water and snacks.

And Kara’s soulmate, whoever they are isn’t around. There are no stories of dates or phone calls or even a offhand mention to _my soulmate in Antarctica_ because Lena is convinced that that is what it would take to separate somebody from Kara, half a world and some sort of contract.

Especially given that she is, in fact, _Supergirl_.

She asks eventually, over one of their many lunch dates when she’s too tired to think but completely unwilling to give up any time with Kara.

Lena is on the verge of offering lawyers, offering a private plane, offering to dedicate a satellite for Kara and her soulmates use, whatever Kara needs, whenever she needs it.

_Her mother must never know._

“Oh,” Kara says her face doing that scrunched up thing that means she is about to lie, fiddling with the wide silver bracelet she always wears, “Alex is my soulmate. Platonic, of course.”

And she can’t figure out why Kara would lie.

She can guess maybe. She is a public figure after all. Just because that was the first time Lena saw Kara it doesn’t mean that was the first time Kara saw Lena.

But even on her worst nights she can’t make herself believe that of Kara.

* * *

(Alex can’t see color yet. Lena asked when Kara had told them to pull out the green plates at her place and she had made a point of not reacting to the order.

“Can you?” she had said with a vague gesture.

Alex had grimaced and called, “Kara neither of us have color yet.”

“Sorry!”)

* * *

 Soulmate dysfunction is not uncommon. 10% of the population suffers from some variation of it. The most common is unrequited soulmates, but platonic soulmates falls under the same label as do polyamorous soulmates. There are cases of people who only get half of their colors with one soulmate half with the next, cases where soulmates gained colors only after a period of knowing each other, cases where soulmates were no longer soulmates after trauma.

Lena did all this research years ago, after a night of watching Lex interact with Clark Kent. Lena made herself an expert, because her brother was suffering and she hoped to find him relief. She found the technical language for soulmates inadequate then, the way the researchers searched for something _wrong_ with the people affected. Now it enrages her, that she would be diagnosed as _less_ for the ability to see.

82% of unrequited soulmates cases end badly, a peer reviewed journal had proclaimed the year Lex had met Clark, the article everywhere they turned. Lena refuses to speculate on what effect that article had had on her brother’s mental health.

(The tabloids are happy to do it for her.)

It was discredited within the year, the researcher disgraced, the journal folded, the publisher bankrupted. Lena had recognized her mother’s hands in the fall from grace and was grateful to her for the first time in years.

(Her own research tells her the actual statistic is 67%, with a standard deviation of 3.)

* * *

 Separated by glass, she tells him his efforts have failed.

It makes him _laugh_ , “Lena love, if I wanted you dead, I’d do more then plant a bomb and hire a hitman.” Her brother is not what he used to be.

He is surprised when she tells him they have something in common.

“Here I was thinking you were in denial about your blood.” Lex looks poisonous today. Prison has had the unfortunate side effect of stripping Lex of his pleasantries, leaving him sharp edged and vicious.

“Luthors have never had much luck with soulmates have they?”

“Oh, Lena,” he says, a little kinder, a little more himself.

“Unrequited.” And the word itself a plea, _not like you, never like you please ohgod_.

“Tell me about them.”

And like a fool, she does. Nothing that could identify Kara, just her kindness and her smile and the way she carries herself through the world.

At the end he says, “I wish I could tell you it would all be alright but you and I both know it would be a lie.”

“Visit again soon Lena.”

(She makes the mistake of looking back. Her brother looks small in orange, behind glass. Then he smiles and she barely recognizes him.)

* * *

 Lena might have made a mistake.

* * *

Then Mon-El.

* * *

 _Fucking_ Mon-El.

* * *

 She didn’t like him when he was Mike and a clingy idiot who couldn’t leave her and Kara to a private conversation. A clingy idiot that invites himself to her event, disappears when the fight happens, and makes Kara’s face twist up with stress and hurt.

She likes him even less when he’s Mon-El of Daxam, prince of a planet of slaveholders and Kara’s _other_ unrequited soulmate. Something he is happy to proclaim everytime he sees Kara. He’s happy to eat up Kara’s time (time she could be spending with Lena), and her energy (energy she could be spending on Lena!)

And he’s _courting_ her. Kara spends a lot of time rolling her eyes, but she smiles sometimes too and Lena doesn’t know what to do with that.

Does he really not _know_ that he was supposed to suffer in silence?

Honestly Lena resents Mon-El more than her mother.

* * *

 (Mon-El describes hows Daxamites find their soulmates once.

They’re both drunk, him more then her and they’ve been talking about Kara. She doesn’t like Mon-El, will never like him. But he’s got no problems talking about Kara, is less of an ass when drunk, and if anyone can relate to her it’s him.

The Kara Danvers Fan Club meets whenever Kara is too busy to come out with them. Lena is _perfectly_ aware of how pathetic they are.

“It’s a thread tying us together,” he says “a [and here he says something guttural and incomprehensible.] A string that leads you directly to your soulmate.”

“Daxamite’s [that word again] come in at twelve. I thought I didn’t have a soulmate until two years later.”

Lena squints at him.

“I’m fourteen years older than her.” He says with a grimace. “Soulmate navigation is the only math class every Daxamite has to take. As soon as my thread came in I plotted the course to follow. I wanted to go to her immediately but my parents talked me down.”

“They didn’t want to cause an incident.” (When the Daxam flagship is hovering over their city Lena will think of this moment and snort.)

“And there were laws too.” He adds like an afterthought. (It would be, to him.) “To protect children with older soulmates. I was going to find her when she came of age.”  

Just to fuck with him, Lena asks, “How would you have handled first contact?”

“What?”

Lena says, “You plotted the course to Earth right. So how would you have handled first contact?” and watches Mon-El flail. Serves him right.

Lena could saved herself a lot of pain if she’d just asked how Kryptonians find their soulmates.

But she already knows. Clark Kent looked at Lois Lane and saw color.)

* * *

Lena does dinner with the Danvers sisters that week. It’s a Tuesday and she’s running late, a call with some overseas investors running over. She stops to pick a bottle of whiskey she knows Alex will appreciate as an apology and takes the stairs to Kara’s place two at a time.

She hears laughter from down the hall and nearly retreats. Instead she lets herself in and stops dead at the sight of Kara with a casual arm around a beautiful woman, Alex smiling across from them. They are all laughing,  but it’s Kara as always who draws her eyes. She’s bright and open, her head tipped back, eyes crinkled up.

 _Not today_. Lena thinks desperately. _Please not today._

“Lena!” Kara shouts, bouncing up from the couch, throwing herself into a hug the way she does all things, wholeheartedly. “Meet Maggie!”

So she schools her face and shakes hands and tries to keep it together until Kara announces a little too gleefully, “She’s Alex’s soulmate!”

And just like that Lena can breathe again.

* * *

“Kara Danvers.” Is the first thing Lex says to her when she picks up the phone and her stomach drops like a stone. Panic attack, she thinks, as her vision greys at the edges, and a buzzing starts in her hands.

“Don’t you think the whole Luthor's and _reporters_ thing is a little played out?” And there’s visible satisfaction in the state he’s reduced her too.

“Lex.” She croaks and the guard posted in the room starts forward to break up the conversation. “ _Please_.”

“Don’t worry so much Lena love.”

“Though,” He adds before they cut the connection, “if you want me to have her other suitor killed, just let me know.”

* * *

The guard apologizes when he brings her to a blank room. “Sorry Miss Luthor, we have to treat all information your brother gives us as a credible threat. The agents who handled his case should be here shortly.”

“And my lawyer?”

“Agent Montoya gave her a call. She’s on her way. I’ll be back with your phone in a few minutes.”

He’s back with her phone and bottle of water fifteen minutes later and reminds her that she’s under surveillance. She hadn’t forgotten but it’s a kindness she didn’t expect. He has no legal obligation to remind her. She makes a note get her hands on his file, make sure that there’s no connection to Lex even as she checks over her texts.

(Lex has made her unforgivably paranoid.)

There’s one from Lucy confirming what she’s been told and reminding her not to talk to the agents without an attorney present, another from Kara asking if they’re still on for dinner.

She groans.

The phone rings for longer than she’d like and she’s tapping a nervous rhythm on the table, before a clipped, “Kara Danvers.” comes across the line.

“Kara!”

“Lena?” Kara’s voice softens, “How’s Metropolis?”

“Not so good.” She says. “I’m calling because I got held up. I don’t think I’ll make dinner tonight.”

“Is something the matter?”

Lena might bite back a scream. Maybe. She admits nothing.

_Is something the matter?_

_Well Kara, my super villain brother knows_ your name _and probably that you’re Supergirl, which yes I know about. Also you’re my soulmate and I’m not yours and half an hour ago my brother threatened to kill an alien prince for me out of some misplaced protectiveness and I’m going to spend the next three hours in a featureless room going over a two minute conversation that will significantly up my threat level at the FBI because I’m going to have to explain how you are my_ unrequited soulmate _. The last time a Luthor had an unrequited soulmate they became a terrorist Kara._

 _The_ FBI _Kara. Where your sister works and will have access to the file._

“No.” She says, “It’s all fine.”

“Liar.” Kara says, affectionate. “Let me know if you need to talk ok? I’m here for you.”

“I know.” She says. “I’ll call you later.”

“Ok, talk to you later Lena! Love you!” And she’s got a whole other reason to scream right there.

* * *

(Kara Danvers uses _I love you_ like punctuation.

She says it to cats, to waitresses, to her boss when she isn’t thinking. She says it at the beginning of conversations, at the end of conversations, and sometimes in the middle too. She says it when people bring her food, or coffee, or wine.

She says it so frequently that it should mean nothing but Kara means it _every single time_ she says _I love you_.)

* * *

Lucy Lane barrels into the room about ten minutes later, waving a copy of transcripts from Lena and Lex’s conversations and ordering the guards to turn off the surveillance in the room.

“I’m citing client confidentiality, get out.” She orders before she looks at Lena. She softens a bit then not that Lena would ever call Lucy Lane _soft._ “You alright boss?”

“I will be.” She says, finally remembering herself. _Luthors do not show weakness_ , she reminds herself and straightens up.

* * *

(Lena hired Lucy two weeks before her brothers trial when the LexCorp lawyers best advice was to plead the fifth on stand. Lucy had called bullshit, crafted a testimony that condemned her brother, avoiding implicating the company, and landed a solid percentage of the jury on her side, every last word of it true. 

Her brother’s soulmate’s soulmate’s sister and Lena nearly hadn’t hired her for that alone.

Lucy had just gotten discharged from the military for reasons she couldn’t talk about and needed something to keep her from drowning. Lena needed somebody who was entirely on her side. The contempt Lucy held Clark Kent in probably helped a bit too.)

* * *

 “Right.” Lucy says, handing Lena the transcripts, her face doing something complicated. “Agents Montoya and Waller will be here in about twenty minutes. They’ll ask you about your brothers threats. You have no obligation to answer and I’ll warn you if I think you shouldn’t answer something.

“I’m giving you this so you can reference what you said.” Then Lucy uncharacteristically heistates, “Lena they’re going to ask you about your last conversation and hows it affects this one.”

Their last conversation being the one where Lena told him about her soulmate.

“If you don’t want to tell them who your soulmate is I need to know that now so I can keep them off the subject.” Lena nods, trying to turn the implications over in her head. “You should also know that Kara Danvers is a friend and I would understand _any_ reasons you would have for wanting to keep the FBI from scruntizing her.”

The emphasis is not subtle but it still takes Lena a moment to connect the dots. “You know about Kara and her...”  Lena trails off not sure of how to put it.

“My last assignment with the army involved working with her on her second job. We still chat regularly.” Lucy sighs at the look on her face. “Lena, you already know that attorney-client privilege protects everything you say to me.”

“Kara is my soulmate.”

“I’d gathered as much. Have you talked to her about this?”

“No.”

Here Lucy looks surprised, “Why not?”

Lena freezes and Lucy instantly says, “No wait that’s off hours talk. What do you want the FBI to know?”

“I’m going to have to tell them about Kara. Lex wasn’t subtle.”

“Good news- the system has a flag on her name that should shield her from this sort of inquiry. Bad news- all reports that mention her get directed to her sister.”

Lena swears.

* * *

 (It’s not that Lena is afraid of Alex Danvers, she tells herself. It’s that she has a very reasonable fear of agents who are licensed to carry and probably have access to secret prisons for people who make the mistake of trying to date her baby sister.

Lena figures that if Alex hasn’t disappeared Mon-El she’s probably safe. She just doesn’t want to test it.)

* * *

“Leaving that for a minute. Mr. Luthor only directly threatened Kara’s ‘other suitor’. Is there anything I need to know about him?”

“Has Kara told you about Mike?”

Lucy looks like she has a headache coming on. “Yeah.”

“Then you know everything you need to know.”

“Mike can be Alex’s headache.” Lucy says firmly. “You’ll need to tell the agents about Kara and it’ll go in your file but that’s confidential. I can keep it from getting leaked to the press with Alex’s help. You’ve done nothing wrong and were quick to volunteer your help. Also Agent Montoya _owes_ me so we should be able to keep this quick.”

“Then you’re coming home with me and we’re going to get day drunk and talk about why you haven’t had a conversation with Kara.”

“I don’t-”

“I don’t care what you want Lena. I’m telling you as your friend that is what’s going to happen.”

* * *

True to Lucy’s word it only takes them an hour. Neither agent had looked impressed with Lena confessing to an unrequited soulmate nor the fact that she had shared information about said soulmate with her brother but they didn’t take her to task over her nor did they push her on the nature of her relationship with Kara. Agent Waller looked like she wanted to but with Lucy hovering over her shoulder the conversation stayed professional.

They shook her hand at the end, told her to call if anything else happened, and had the courtesy to wait until Lena was almost out of earshot before Waller said “We’ll need to upgrade Luthor’s threat assessment again.”

“Which one?”

“Both of them.”

Lena flinches. Lucy very calmly takes her hand and leads her out of the prison.

* * *

Lena hasn’t lived in her apartment in Metropolis since the day Lex was arrested.

The FBI had showed up with a squad and a warrant and turned the place upside down while she sat on her couch and answered invasive questions. When they’d left, hours later, the place was a mess and she couldn’t deal with it. She’d booked into a hotel ten minutes away and lived there until she moved to National City.

She paid cleaners to deal with the mess, sent Jess to pack up her clothes and books. She’d abandoned the rest with the vague hope that someday she’d be able to go back and paid a service to clean it every month.

Still she nearly tells her driver to take them there before Lucy takes over, supplying a address on the other side of town. Numbly, Lena watches Lucy breaks out the complementary minis from the cooler and lines them up on the armrest.

"Take a shot Lena." Lucy says, "It's a twenty minute drive home, I figure we can get three in before get there."

They manage four and Lena's hands finally stop shaking.

Lucy leads her into a modern building that's largely unremarkable and up six floors to an apartment done up in monochrome. Her apartment is in monochrome, all black and white and grey and Lena makes a point of finding Lucy’s eyes. They’re still green.

"Wine or whiskey?" She asks.

"Wine if we're going to talk about Kara."

Lucy finds a bottle, two glasses, uncorks it and pours them tall. She waits until Lena's had a sip, declared it passable before she says, "I met Kara in National City last year, on my last assignment. She was working her way up to dating my ex when I met her."

“Your ex?”

“James Olsen.”

"I didn't like her at first." Lucy admits. "Not that any of it was her fault but James mishandled the situation and it was easier to blame her than it was to blame him."

"What happened?"

"She grew on me." Lucy makes a face. "After the myriad crisis I was called to account for my actions during the attack. I made mistakes in my handling of the situation and I had made an enemy of my father. If they had had their way I would have gotten a dishonorable discharge."

"But you didn't."

"No. Because on the first day of hearings Supergirl showed up in the courtroom. She sat in the front row and shamed them into letting her speak. And when they gave her a platform she challenged any them to have done better in the circumstances."

"The whole thing was hushed up, I got a honorable discharge, and Kara told me to call her if I ever needed anything. That she _owed_ me. I didn't do a damn thing for her."

"So I called her a week later, after I finished moving back, and now we're friends. I get invited to game night every week even when I’m halfway across the country and when I call her she always picks up."

"So knowing that background I have to ask, why haven't you talked to her about this?"

"I don't want her pity."

"That's not really a good enough reason. You know her. Is Kara Danvers a person prone to pitying people?"

"No and that will make it worse. She won't know what to do and it will change things between us. She's my best friend Lucy. I don't know what I'd do if things changed."

"What about Mike? Did things change between them when Kara found out about him."

"I don't know." Lena says dryly, "Knowing what I know about Mon-El I suspect that it the was first thing he said to her."

Lucy snorts. "Yeah I've had a fair number of calls from the Danvers sisters about him. Alex just wants to shoot him."

"And Kara?"

"You haven't talked to her about him?"

"Only in general."

"He frustrates Kara. She also feels like she needs to give him a chance."

"Why?"

"She hasn't met her soulmate yet."

"Yes she has."

Lucy looks oddly gentle as she says, "No Lena she hasn't."

"But she can see color!"

"She hasn't talked to you about this?" Lucy looks like she’s been struck and then insistently she asks, "Lena, does Kara know you know?"

"Know what?"

"That she's Supergirl."

Lena looks away. "No. She doesn't know."

"Lena."

"Stop judging Lane."

"I wash my hands of you. Talk to Kara. Tell her you know. You know the research better than me Lena. If you don't tell her it'll go wrong eventually. And we both know what happens when it goes wrong."

"Yeah," Lena grumbles, "the FBI upgrades my threat clearance and you have to watch Clark Kent and your sister be unbearable together."

Lucy grimaces and says, "I'll drink to that."

And they do.

* * *

(Later-

Lena presses her face into Lena’s shoulder and mumbles, “She’s so perfect, Lucy I can’t even.”

Lucy pets her hair and says, not unkindly, “Get your shit together Luthor.”)

* * *

Lucy looked irritatingly fresh as she shook Lena awake, pressed a travel mug into her hands, and herded her down to the waiting car before the sun was even up.

"Talk to Kara." She ordered before disappearing back upstairs. The coffee, at least, was blessedly hot.

Lena dozed on the plane and wakes up with the landing. She's hungover when she steps off the plane the next day, doing her best to block out the sun with a heavy pair of sunglasses, hoping against hope that the tabloids haven't caught word of the altercation at the prison. Lucy's apparently done her job and there's no paparazzi there to greet her.

Kara however is. Lena does not freeze because she is a Luthor and is _better_ than that.

"Kara."

"Hey Lena, Lucy called me to tell me you needed a hug." And with that warning, Kara steps forward and wraps her up.

Lena allows herself to sink into the hug resting her forehead on Kara's shoulder, shuffling closer.

She stays there for as long as she can, far longer then she would normally allow herself, before Kara gently lets go. She straightens up, mutters an apology.

"That's what friends are for." Kara says with shrug, taking her overnight bag.

"Do you need a ride?"

"That would be good. I got a lift out here but I still need to get to work."

"I didn't mean to make you late."

"Seriously Lena, don't worry about it. Snapper thinks I'm working on a contact and approved the whole thing."

"Oh, are you?"

"They're not mutually exclusive." Kara says easily. She waves off the driver and opens the car door for Lena, gives her a hand to help her get settled in before she slides in beside her. (Lena is not swooning. No sir, not at all.)

Kara's still when the cars starts moving, quiet and restful. Lena lets herself drift off against her shoulder.  She wakes when Kara gently shakes her shoulder. They're parked outside CatCo

"Are you going to be ok?"

"Yeah." Lena says, swallowing her feelings at waking up to Kara Danvers looking concerned about her. "I going to take a half day and sleep this off, go into the office in the afternoon."

Kara frowns a bit but bites back whatever she was going to say. "We'll reschedule dinner in a couple days. Get some sleep Lena and I'll text you later."

"Will do." She says and watches Kara until she disappears until the building.

* * *

 She's better six hours later having napped, showered, downed another cup of coffee, feeling almost positive about the rest of her day. She's just set Jess on acquiring her another cup and settled into her desk when the front desk calls up and tells her Agent Danvers is here for her.

 _Goddamnit_.

"Send her up." She says.

She takes a minute to groan and drop her head to her desk before the elevator beeps, letting Alex off in her office.

Oh, and Maggie too. Maybe this conversation will be less awful then she thinks.

Then she gets a good look at Alex’s face and reconsiders.

"Hello Alex. Hello Maggie.”

“Hey Lena,” Maggie says with a smile, “how are you doing?”

"I'm fine."

"Good. Then can you explain to me why your brother is using my sister as a threat against you." Alex waits until that sinks in before she adds. “Also why I shouldn’t tell Kara you’re her soulmate."

“Babe.” Maggie says. “You know how you said you weren’t going to threaten Lena?”

“Yeah.”

“That was a threat.”

Alex looks outraged at that, “No it wasn’t.”

“It kinda was.”

“But!” Alex gestures inarticulately, turning to Lena for backup.

She shrugs helplessly and Alex mutters something nasty under her breath, turning towards Maggie. “Sorry.” Alex says and Alex Danvers is another woman that Lena would never call _soft_ but with Maggie she is. It hurts to watch them.

She breaks up that bit of sappiness when she says, “I haven’t told Kara she’s my soulmate because she’s not mine.”

Alex says, “And how do you know that?”

“She can see color Alex!” Lena snaps.

“That isn’t how-“ Alex cuts herself off. She sighs, drags a hand down her face and says, “You should _really_ talk to Kara about this.”

“Why?”

“Because it matters.” Alex says patiently. “It’s going to be ok Lena.”

* * *

It’s not going to be ok.

* * *

 She doesn’t talk to Kara about it that week. She _can’t_ . Tomorrow, she promises herself every night and every day she doesn’t and then it’s the weekend and she thinks, _next week, next week I’ll tell her_.

And then Lex breaks out of Belle Reve.

* * *

 Lena doesn’t actually hear about Lex’s breakout until the FBI invades her office. It’s Monday and she’s made plans with Kara for dinner. She’s ordered chinese and a triple order of potstickers, to be delivered to her apartment at seven and this is it. Tonight is the night she’ll tell Kara.

Instead she gets another featureless white room, but this time they take her phone and deposit her there to stew. It’s three hours, by her watch before she hears anybody coming, which is sooner than she expected.

Alex burst into the room two minutes later.

“Your brother has kidnapped Kara, you’re with me Luthor.”

“What?”

“Don’t make me say that sentence again Lena, I will lose my mind.”

* * *

 Lena waits until they’ve cleared the Federal building before she lays a hand on Alex’s wrist.

“What?” She snaps.

“Was Kara kidnapped by my brother or was Supergirl?”

Alex swears before she says, “Next time lead with that. Now get in the van Luthor.”

She waits until Lena is in the van before she says, “Kara was kidnapped by Lex Luthor from Noonan’s on her lunch break. He and a group of armed men invaded the place, and held a waitress hostage until she agreed to come with them. When they turned the hostage lose, your brother shot Kara with some sort of tranquilizer and dragged her off. He called me from Kara’s phone half an hour ago, refused to speak to anybody but you.”

“He doesn’t know then?”

“No he knows. The dart was Kryptonite tipped, through hell knows where he got it, and when he called he used my proper title.”

“Agent Danvers?”

“Deputy head of the DEO.” Lena gapes at her. “He’s going to call back soon. Keep him talking to see if we can get a trace and try to get Kara on the phone.”

“I was going to tell her tonight.” Lena says.

“Hopefully you’ll still get that chance.”

* * *

 Alex’s phone rings, _walking on sunshine_ blaring, too loud in the enclosed space.

“Winn?” Kara’s friend, manning the computers in the back of the van. Lena hadn’t even noticed him.

“I’m ready.”

Alex puts her cell into speaker mode before she answers with a clipped, “Agent Danvers.”

“Agent Danvers, I believe I said I would only speak with my sister. I was very clear, wasn’t I, about what would happen to _your_ sister otherwise?”

Alex gestures sharply at Lena to stay quiet.

“Shame.” Lex says and there’s a short sharp noise and a cry in the background.

“Stop! Lex stop please. I’m here.” Lena says all in a rush.

“Lena.” Lex breathes out like a sigh, the same pinched tone of voice from when she got into fights in school. The _I’m disappointed in you_ voice. It’s much more effective than Lillian’s. But then Lena used to care what Lex thought of her.

“I want to talk to Kara.”

“She’s a little busy right now. But don’t worry too much. She’s still in one piece. I’m much more interested in her jewelry right now.”

Lena blinks, glances at Alex who’s face has gone stony and still. “Her jewelry?”

“Of course. Did you know the necklace has a series of microchips embedded in it? Fascinating. And the bracelet is made from a metal not of this earth. I just need to figure out the clasp.”

He hums. “Lena love, I really thought that you might escape us. I was counting on it.”

“Us, Lex? I don’t understand.”

“The Luthors, Lena. You were the last one standing and you could have escaped it all. Lionel’s cruelty, Lillian’s manipulations, me. And then you had to go and get an unrequited soulmate. Did you learn nothing from _me_?”

She swallows dryly, “ _Please_ Lex.”

“Lena love don’t you remember?” If prison stripped Lex of his masks, than freedom has made him vicious. “ _Luthors don’t beg_.”

There’s a click over the line. “Ah,” he says, back to curious scientist, “that’s how that works.”  

“What is that?” He asks, sounding distracted. Then sharply- “I’ll have to call you back Lena.”

The line goes dead.

Alex whirls around, “Winn, were you able to track it?”

“I’ve got a twenty mile radius but that covers most of National Cities warehouse district, downtown and some of the desert.”

“ _Fuck_.” Alex says, heartfelt. “Keep going over the footage of the kidnapping and see if you can find anything. We’ll have to wait until he calls again.”

* * *

 They drive to a base that requires Lena to go through four biometric tests before she’s allowed in and a flurry of activity begins when Alex strides through the bullpen, Winn and Lena trailing in her wake. Winn takes over a computer station and start working, Lena hanging uselessly over her shoulder.

“Lena, you ok?” Winn asks.

“What’s interesting about Kara’s jewelry?”

“What?”

“Alex looked worried when Lex started talking about it.”

“The necklace was a gift from her mother,” Winn takes a deep breath and continues, “and she uses the bracelet to cover her soulmark.”

“Her soulmark.” Lena says, sitting down abruptly in the chair Winn has been not so subtly nudging her towards for the last half hour. “But Kryptonians see color when they meet their soulmates.”

“Clark did.” Alex says for behind her. “But he didn’t know he was an alien until he was fifteen and even if he had its apparently about fifty/fifty on whether he would have developed a soulmark or gone colorblind. Kara actually grew up on Krypton.”

“This is why you wanted me to talk to her.”

“It wasn’t my secret to share.”

“Does she know?”

“No. Kara suspected you might be a possible match by she doesn’t know.” That’s Winn this time.

“Suspected? Won’t her soulmark tell her that? And how do you know this, Winn?”

“It got covered in the whole your best friend is an alien who can fly conversation back when she told me.” Then pointedly, he says, “If you had told her you knew she would have had the same conversation with you.”

Alex says, “For all that Kara loves people she doesn’t normally take to them the way she took to you. And her soulmark doesn’t work like that.”

“Then how does it work?”

“Still not my secret to tell Lena. We’ll get her back and you can ask her.” Alex turns to Winn, clearly done with the subject. “How’s the searching coming?”

“I’m running the plates on the van they used to abduct Kara and cross referencing them against traffic cams in the city to try and narrow down the location but that’s going to take time.”

“Keep it up then.” She says brusquely, “Lena, I need a complete list of LexCorp properties and your best guess on where your brother would take Kara.”

“Of course.”

Lex doesn’t call and he doesn’t pick up when they try to call him. They narrow down the area by a third and cross reference it against the list of properties. There’s three with the radius they’ve narrowed down and Alex starts organizing raids.

“This is too obvious.” Lena says. “Lex is smarter than this.”

“I know.” Alex says grimly. “But it’s all we’ve got. Superman is taking one, we’ve got the other two and hopefully we’ll find some that we can use.”

* * *

 Alex drops her off at her apartment with orders to stay put, that Lena has no intention of following. She just needs her gun, and then she’ll start calling every one of the Lex’s numbers. Eventually he’ll pick up. He’s alway had a hard time saying no to her.

She shouldn’t have any trouble slipping the guard Alex left on her. She’s not expecting Lex to be drinking in her kitchen when she lets herself in and nearly jumps when he says, “Hello Lena.”

“ _Jesus_ Lex.”

“Relax Lena love. I just came by to drop off your soulmate.”

She looks pointedly at the decanter by his elbow, “and enjoy some of your whisky.” He amends. “It’s very hard to get the good stuff in supermax.”

“And who’s fault is that?” She asks, as the conversation catches up with her. “Where’s Kara?”

He gestures, a little too broadly for sobriety to the couch where Kara is tucked in with a blanket over her, one arm settled on top. Lena hurries to her and checks her over. There’s a fading bruise at her temple, track marks on her arm, but otherwise she is fine. Tucked inside her wrist is a cursive ‘L’ and Lena loses time in the familiar loops of it.

“She’s fine. The dose I gave her should wear off in an hour or so. I do want to be back behind bars before she wakes up.”

Lex hums leaning against the counter.

“Did you know by your soulmate’s standards Clark is a very good human and a very bad Kryptonian?” There’s a edge to his voice that might be hysteria. “I gave her a bit of truth serum to get some answers about that very interesting tattoo on her wrist and got a bit more than I asked for.”

“I don’t understand.” Lena says numbly. Which, _fair_.

“You did it Lena. You made it out.” He spreads his arms wide and smiles. Lex grandiose and on top of the world was always her favorite version of her brother before they started talking about diagnoses and medication, before Clark Kent.

Now it just makes her nervous.

 _He_  just makes her nervous.

He downs his glass and refills it. “You should probably call your security detail before they realize I’m here. You don’t want an accusations of collusion.”

She gets her gun from the safe and then calls down.

When they burst into her apartment they find her holding her brother at gunpoint as he drinks another glass of whisky. It’s also roughly the same time the delivery she forgot to cancel arrives. The delivery boy snaps a picture and it leads on every west coast newspaper the next day.

The DEO let her stash the food in the fridge before she gets hauled back to their secret base.

* * *

 In an ideal world she’d be there when Kara woke up. They’d confess their secrets and affirm their love and everything would work out perfectly. Real life is a little messier than that.

She’s still getting debriefed by the DEO when Kara wakes up and only hears about it when WInn pops his head in and lets her know. It’s past midnight by the time they sign off on her and she stumbles out of the interrogation room and runs right into Kara.

“I am so sorry.”  Lena blurts.

“What for?” Kara asks and she tries to fumble out an apology that includes soulmates, secret identities, and her older brother.

“I think,” Kara says, blessedly cutting her off. “that we both have things to apologize for. Can I give you a lift home?”

“Please.” She says.

Kara adjusts her glasses, “How do you feel about heights?”

“I think I can deal.”

She smiles, and Lena is definitely swooning.

* * *

 Five minutes later, Supergirl lands on Lena’s balcony the lady in question in her arms. Kara sets her down gently and says, “We can talk tomorrow if you need to.”

“No, please. I have potstickers.”

Kara smiles, “You know I can’t resist those.”

“Part of my evil plan to draw you in.” She jokes and winces. “Too soon?”

“No. I don’t blame you.”

She pulls the food out of the fridge and says, “It’ll be half an hour before these are ready.”

“Can I?” Kara asks, hands out, and when Lena offers the food up, she zaps them with her _laser  vision,_ ‘cause Lena’s soulmate is a _superhero_.

They eat reheated Chinese standing, clustered around the bar in Lena’s kitchen, comfortably close like they’ve done a hundred times before, when Kara says, “It was much easier on Krypton. When our soulmarks came in, we got them registered to the matrix and it alerted us to possible matches. Then it’s just a matter of matching handwriting and the matrix handled that. Usually you’d have your soulmates contact by the end of the day.”

“You don’t have to tell me this.” Lena says quietly. “If you don’t want to.”

“I do.” Kara says calmly. “You deserve to know why I didn’t recognize you.”

She pauses. “Do you have a pen?”

And Lena fumbles through her drawers for a pen and Kara draws a flowing character on the back of the receipt for the food. “If you have been a Kryptonian this would have appeared on the inside of your left wrist.”

“Your name?”

“My name.” She says pointing to swirls that indicate a daughter, the modifier that says the house of El those who know how to read it. Which was until this moment, just Kara.  

“If Krypton had survived I would have been a diplomat, one of the few who was allowed to make contact with new worlds.” Her mouth tightens. “I had just started training when the collapse occurred. And then I came here and my planet was dead but at least I still had a chance with my soulmate. At least I knew I was on the right planet. I didn’t understand how names work on this planet, not at first. Do you know how common the letter ‘L’ is as a first name Lena? ‘Cause I do.”

“I did the math, once I figured out how names work on Earth and the statistics were not on my side. So I had to resign myself to letting my soulmate find me and you did!”

“You found me and you didn’t tell me.” Kara’s gone tense, her shoulders rigid.

“Yes.” Lena says, winces, and comes clean. “I knew you were Supergirl from the moment your cousin introduced you.”

Kara blinks, some of that tension bleeding from her.

“It’s obvious if you know about Clark Kent’s alter ego. He would only have one cousin and she would be Supergirl. I also knew that Kent saw color when he met Lois Lane and that you already had color when I met you. Ergo you had to already have a soulmate. I put two and two together and got five.”

“Oh.” Kara says, “but why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I was afraid.” Lena admits. “You have to admit my family history for this is uniquely awful.”

“And now?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be unafraid again.”

“That’s ok.” Kara says, closer and warmer than she’s been since she landed on the balcony. “I can fix that.”

And Kara leans in and kisses her.

_Finally._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm _very angry_ because I just wrote 7.3k of Miscommunication as Plot Device and ended it with a scene from Holes (2003), cinematic masterpiece of our time. 
> 
> Was that intentional? Not in the slightest.
> 
> Am i going to fix it? _Hell no._
> 
> Anyway you guys know that comic where [Raleigh is the president of the Mako Mori fan club? And Pentecost shows up with the founder of the Mako Mori fan club t-shirt.](http://serenity-fails.tumblr.com/post/55817212360/mako-fan-club)
> 
> I want that comic but with Lena wearing the president shirt and Alex wearing the founder shirt. My tumblr is here.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] i see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17234765) by [Night (Night_Inscriber)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Night_Inscriber/pseuds/Night)




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